Three Ruthless Bikers : One Temptation

Chapter three

LENA'S POV

I couldn't sleep.

The room was warm enough, the bed was fine, but my brain wouldn't shut off. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Edmund's cold hands reaching for mine. Heard Margaret's voice telling me to smile.

I sat up, swung my legs off the bed, and decided I needed water.

The upstairs hallway was dark and quiet. I stepped out carefully, barefoot on the wooden floor, trying to remember which direction Axel had pointed toward the bathroom earlier.

Left. I was almost sure it was left.

I padded down the hall, counted two doors, reached for the third one and pushed it open.

Steam hit me first.

Then I froze.

Ghost was standing at the sink, fresh out of the shower, a towel hanging dangerously low on his hips. Water still ran down the tattoos covering his chest, his arms, the hard lines of his stomach. He looked up and our eyes met in the mirror.

Neither of us moved.

"Wrong room," I whispered. I couldn't make my feet work.

"Yeah," he said. He didn't turn around. He didn't tell me to leave either.

The steam curled between us. I could see every tattoo clearly now, a skull on his left collarbone, something in Latin across his ribs, roses and thorns winding up his forearm that somehow looked violent and beautiful at the same time.

"Lena."

My name in his mouth snapped me back. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

I pulled the door shut and stood in the hallway with my back against the wall and my heart absolutely hammering.

I found the correct bathroom two doors down.

I stood over the sink and ran cold water over my wrists and told myself to get it together.

It didn't work.

I was almost back to my room when I saw him.

Rook.

He was sitting on the floor outside my door, back against the wall, arms resting on his knees. He looked up when he heard me coming, completely unbothered, like this was a perfectly normal place to be at two in the morning.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"Sitting."

"Outside my room."

"Apparently."

I stared at him. He stared back. His cut lip from yesterday had started to heal but it still made him look like trouble. He looked like trouble even when he was perfectly still.

"Ghost put you here?" I asked.

"No."

"Axel?"

"No."

I crossed my arms. "So you just decided to sit outside my door in the middle of the night for no reason."

"I decided to make sure you were safe," he said. "There's a reason."

"I didn't ask you to do that."

"I know."

He said it so simply, like it didn't need explaining. Like he'd weighed it up and decided and that was the end of it. I didn't know what to do with that. No one had ever just decided to look out for me before. Not once.

I leaned against the doorframe and looked down at him. "You could have just locked my door from the outside."

"That's not the same thing."

"How is it different?"

He looked up at me. In the low light of the hallway his eyes were darker than usual, more open than I'd ever seen them. "A lock keeps things out," he said quietly. "I wanted to be sure."

Something moved through my chest that I didn't have a name for.

"You're strange," I told him.

The corner of his mouth lifted. Not a full smile. Just a hint of one, like he kept them rationed and this was all I was getting tonight. "So I've been told."

I pushed my door open. Stood in the doorway. "You don't have to sit on the floor, Rook."

He raised an eyebrow.

"There's a chair right inside," I said. "If you're going to be ridiculous about this you might as well be comfortable."

He was quiet for a moment, like he was deciding if I meant it. Then he stood up slowly, unfolding to his full height, and I remembered all over again how big he was. How much space he took up just by existing.

He walked past me into the room and I caught the scent of leather and something warmer underneath it.

He picked up the chair from the corner, carried it to the door, and sat in it facing outward into the hall.

Guarding. Still.

"Goodnight, Lena," he said.

I looked at the back of his head. At the set of his shoulders. At the way he held himself like a wall between me and whatever was outside.

"Goodnight, Rook," I said softly.

I got into bed and lay in the dark and listened to him breathe.

I fell asleep faster than I had in years.

Morning came loud.

Engines outside, boots on the stairs, someone's music bleeding through the walls. I sat up and looked at the chair by the door.

Empty.

He was gone. But the chair was still angled exactly the way he'd left it, still facing outward, still guarding a door that no longer needed it.

I got dressed and went downstairs.

Axel was at the kitchen table. Ghost was by the window with his coffee. Rook was leaning against the counter eating toast like last night never happened.

He glanced at me when I walked in. Just once. Then looked away.

But the tips of his ears were red.

I bit down on a smile and reached past him for a mug.

"Sleep okay?" Axel asked.

"Better than expected," I said.

Rook said nothing.

Ghost looked between us over the rim of his coffee cup with those impossible eyes and said absolutely nothing either.

But he saw it.

I was certain he saw everything.